Public Safety

Lt. Gov Dan Forest and others sent out a reminder that December 17 is the 115th anniversary of the Wright Flyer’s historic flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The occasion has long been a boon for tourism and recognition for North Carolina, clearly evident by our “First in Flight” license plate.

Tobin notes that the Wrights, in large part because of their more humble background, were certainly viewed as the underdogs in the race if they were even thought of much at all. Their origins and dogged determination certainly helped catapult them into American icons once they achieved their feat.

The entrepreneurial side to that story serves as a great reminder of getting government out of the way when it comes to picking winners and losers and ending corporate welfare.

The Wright Brothers built a workable aircraft for under $1000 in three years, which included years of transportation costs from Ohio to North Carolina’s Outer Banks. One of the reasons the Outer Banks won out to test the flyer was not just because of ideal winds and topography, but the kindness and receptiveness of Kitty Hawk’s weather station chief in responding to Wilbur Wright’s correspondence.

The Wright Brother’s largest American competitor, Samuel Pierpont Langley, had $50,000 in government funding and exceeded $20,000 in investments but his aircraft and media hyped testing efforts ended up being a notorious flop. In the end, given the number of dignitaries and scientists attached to his race to be first, the media piled on and mocked his failed initiative.

Langley saw the elusive nature of flight as a problem of harnessing enough power, while the Wright Brothers correctly diagnosed the missing piece as one of balance. Many of their supplies came from their Dayton bicycle shop, not the high powered and expensive machinery being built by Langley’s crew.

While it’s impossible to go into the whole story in this post, it does offer up quite the lesson in the importance of entrepreneurial innovation, deregulation, and getting government out of subsidizing what quite possibly could be an epic failure.

One congressman at the turn of the century summed it up well: “You can tell Langley for me, the only thing he ever made fly was government money.”

States and municipalities courting of large corporations such as Amazon and Apple has brought the folly of economic development tax incentives into the public awareness. Those incentives are intended to lure hand-picked corporations to the state at taxpayers’ expense.

Corporate handouts fundamentally create an uneven playing field for businesses within the state. Non-incentivized corporations must pass along the higher price of doing business to their workers (through lower wages) or customers (through higher prices). These added costs make them less competitive than businesses that receive special tax breaks. Thus, corporate incentives essentially allow government to pick winners and losers in the free market.

Corporate incentives are not the way to strengthen our economy, so how can the state promote economic growth?

A recent editorial by the Capital Broadcast Company called for movement in the exact opposite direction. They advocated a halt to the state’s scheduled decrease of the corporate income tax in 2019, saying that the revenue collected by the higher tax rate is needed to fund government obligations. According to the article, one such obligation is providing “high quality of life to all its citizens.”

What the article fails to mention is the impact that a thriving business environment has on quality of life.

The most recent report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that low-tax burden states had employment growth rates of 50.9 percent higher than average-tax states and 72.1 percent higher than high-tax states (Analysis here). That same report reinforced North Carolina as a consistent leader for unemployment decreases.

Following this pattern, the elimination of corporate income tax would likely drive more economic growth. Businesses would want to locate in North Carolina, where they would have an advantage over businesses in other states with corporate income taxes. This would foster growth for all businesses, and not just those favored by politicians.

Cultivating an environment where people can find work and be self-sufficient is the biggest impact state government can have on quality of life.

Progressives like us to think that corporate taxes are a charge on the soulless, faceless big businesses. But the truth is that those taxes almost always get passed on to workers in the form of lower wages. Corporations are comprised of a collection of individuals; when taxes on corporations are raised, individual people ultimately bear that burden. Corporate income taxes allow government to extract more money from citizens of the state, without having to take the direct political blame for doing so.

In summation, the corporate income tax: is felt most by average North Carolinians through lower wages; incentivizes lawmakers to meddle in the free market through selectively offering tax breaks; and hinders economic growth compared to lowering taxes across the board.

North Carolina has lowered the corporate income tax in recent years, and the results are undeniable. But eliminating the corporate income tax entirely is the next logical step for North Carolina.

A bill entitled, “Bipartisan State Board Changes” – House Bill 1029 – (Reps. Torbett, R-Gaston and Iler, R-Brunswick), which sailed to passage in the General Assembly yesterday, ends a two-year struggle between the General Assembly and Gov. Roy Cooper over partisan control of the State Board of Elections. The bill also covers several other areas, including allowing for a new primary in a disputed congressional race and concerns over absentee ballot fraud.

The bill largely returns the state elections and lobbying management structure to that of 2016, with the State Board of Elections handling elections and campaign finance issues, the State Ethics Commission dealing with ethics compliance and enforcement, and the Secretary of State’s office tasked with registering and regulating lobbyists.

After the 2016 elections, those functions had been combined into an eight-member Bipartisan State Board of Ethics and Elections Enforcement in 2017. However, the state Supreme Court sided with Cooper’s argument that the merger of the boards interfered with his constitutional power to enforce elections laws. The General Assembly responded by putting the question to voters in the form of an amendment to the North Carolina Constitution on the November 2018 ballot. Voters rejected the proposed amendment by a margin of 62-38 percent. As with redistricting, elections enforcement is inherently political. The changes included in HB 1029 are an acknowledgment of that and the referendum results.

Addressing a more recent concern, the bill stipulates that a new primary would be required if the Board of Elections orders a new congressional general election. Broadly, the change acknowledges that a new election is a new political event, information about which would likely affect whom primary voters would chose to represent their party in the general election. More specifically, a new election is also an acknowledgement that extensive ballot harvesting took place in the 9th Congressional District Republican primary as well as in the general election. HB 1029 specifies that the implementation of the voter ID law will not apply to any new election ordered for a 2018 contest, giving local election officials sufficient time to implement the law.

The bill also addresses problems associated with absentee voting. The bill attempts to fill a gap in the current law by requiring certification that the person submitting an absentee ballot is, in fact, the person to whom it was issued. Verification can be accomplished by having the two adults currently required to witness the marking of the absentee ballot also sign certification, causing no additional burden to the voter. Alternatively, the voter can have the ballot application notarized if one of the witnesses cannot confirm the identity of the voter.

HB 1029 also requires the State Board of Elections to investigate potential absentee ballot fraud over the past five election cycles. In addition to providing data on mail-in absentee ballots, the board must specifically report on “instances of potential mail-in ballot harvesting,” a pernicious practice in which political operatives take ballots from voters rather than allowing voters to directly submit their own ballots as required by law. Alleged ballot harvesting has been going on in Bladen County since at least 2016 and has allegedly been practiced in othercounties as well.

The bill also includes provisions that lessen the likelihood that the General Assembly would have to go into special session to address legal challenges to legislative districts and reforms, potentially saving taxpayer money.

To the consternation of many in the Triangle area, Apple has decided to locate their second campus in Austin, Texas. Optimism abounded in NC for the new Apple headquarter particularly since lawmakers sweetened their incentives packages to attract the tech giant. WRAL is reporting that NC lawmakers are surprised by Apple’s announcement.

Among other incentives, US News reported that the deal would virtually cancel corporate income tax payments that Apple would have made for the next 30 years. The article does a good job too in pointing out how landing Apple would have exacerbated the lack of affordable housing in the area, particularly for households not landing the big high-tech jobs. The kind of jobs that are being propped up by taxpayers by the way. The loss of revenue from Apple, while simultaneously bringing in more people, would undoubtedly place an infrastructure burden on local governments.

A few on social media, hyper-politicized-progressive types, were quick to blame dysfunctional state politics, presumably meaning the “crazed” Republican General Assembly for losing Apple, while a few others blamed the lack of light rail and bike lanes.

Obviously, better solutions would be to nix the corporate income tax altogether and improve upon pro-business policies that will benefit all in the state, not just the chosen few.

The more important question appears to be, will state political leaders take a step back from corporate incentives or double down on the unfair practice?

Will they be a part of the national herd on this issue or lead from a position of principle?

This is really a question if they have the political courage to do the right thing and explain to the populace why corporate incentives are wrong for North Carolina. I think the majority of the people are with them. Citizens want an honest, fair, and transparent government. This is the perfect issue to move more in that direction.

Over at NC Policy Watch, Rob Schofield has a short essay titled “North Carolina’s big government conservatives and the endless legislative session.” Schofield makes a few solid albeit obvious points. Many so-called conservatives are hypocrites when it comes to reigning in the regulatory state and even “love government in a wide variety of circumstances.”

One can certainly pick apart some of his selective comments when it comes to certain social issues and other points such as Second Amendment protections. The collapse of some cultural norms has unfortunately pushed many issues into the political and policy-making world that ideally should never be there.

I don’t want to nitpick some of Schofield’s overall generalizations because undoubtedly there is some truth to what he is saying about conservative hypocrisy and government growth. One of the chief arguments for Republicans in the General Assembly on education and the state budget was bragging about how much they increased spending as if that was the main problem that needed to rectified when it comes to that issue. At the federal level, particularly in the 1990s, the grand accomplishment for conservatives in Washington was merely slowing the rate of government growth. We can all offer up a plethora of examples.

Rare is the politician who is ideologically consistent. The vast majority of them are much more concerned with self-preservation and protecting their power structure.

The rampant political tribalism undoubtedly plays a role in this hypocrisy, meaning as long as one’s preferred side controls government and its vast tentacles, all is well for many.

Schofield’ s point at the end is somewhat of an odd one though:

The bottom line: Democratic government, properly constituted and overseen can be a force for enormous good and, indeed, the best hope for preserving and enhancing human freedom and wellbeing. So long, however, as the people leading the government deny this important truth, the chances for success will be greatly diminished.

It’s not on its face a radical statement. It gets to the heart of this popular post-New Deal liberalism ideal of managerial government and bureaucracy as a force for good. It’s a belief that ultimately, the bureaucratic experts know best for you and me.

To his credit, Schofield offers up some limits on government with the wording “properly constituted.” After all, according to the American Framers, the government is instituted to preserve and protect our rights and property. In the American conservative tradition, the government is a mechanism to secure inherent rights. We place limits on government power because conservatives believe the human person, the invididual, is above the state.

But I suspect by some of his wording, when it comes to the lack of placing the government in its proper sphere, is where Schofield radically departs from conservative thought.

Again, his “bottom line” is only true if the government is placed in its proper place. When the government moves into other spheres of life, whether it be the Church, the family, or other areas of civil society or the private sector, it creeps and ultimately crushes those central spheres of influence and authority. Government is not and should never be the greatest things in our life. If it is we are disordered. That is why the Framers were so intent on limiting the size and scope of government. They were students and scholars of history and they were well aware of the tyranny left in the wake of governments throughout human history.

Finally, on the hypocrisy issue, I think it’s important to point out that just viewing it through a politicized lens is wrong. It automatically assumes this notion that government is the answer before addressing first principles. Instead, he’s choosing to focus on political partisanship first over and above deeper truths. If a preacher tells you adultery is wrong but cheats on his wife, is the truthfulness of his advice and good moral counsel then made wrong by his actions?

Scholfield’s essay is important though even if there is plenty of room for nitpicking and places for disagreement. It’s a reminder that first principles are far more important than hypocritical politicians or quests for power. Particularly for organizations like Civitas that routinely wade into the policy arena. It reminds conservatives, before everything else, that we must place the government in its proper sphere if human freedom is going to be expanded.

The News & Observer quickly came to the defense of the Wake County public school establishment today, in light of heated criticism the district was facing over school cancellations. Parents are justifiably upset that the entire 160,000 student district shuts down when only part of the district faces dangerous road conditions. For instance, southern parts of the county had bone-dry roads this morning, yet students sit home because the entire district is shut down because northern parts of the county may still have slick roads. Breaking up the district into smaller districts would help solve this problem, many parents pointed out.

In response to parents’ complaints, WCPSS decided to respond to reasonable concerns about unnecessary school closings by lecturing about the value of “diversity.”

The N&O today echoed that sentiment, but in the process revealed some blatant contradictions.

The merger (between Raleigh City and Wake County schools) created a school system praised for the quality and the diversity of its schools. That helped make Wake County one of the fastest-growing counties in the nation and contributed to its towns and cities landing spots on best-places-to-live lists.

Now the merger’s momentum is beginning to fade and segregation is beginning to reemerge. Competition from 24 Wake County charter schools, more private schools and home schooling has slowed the school system’s once roaring growth.

If the merger resulted in such praise-worthy schools, why are families choosing non-traditional choices like charters, private and homeschooling in such rapidly rising numbers?

The Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) Twitter feed heated up recently. A lively discussion between WCPSS and parents showed brewing frustration over the district’s low bar on school closures.

In response to inferences that the district might be too large, WCPSS said the effort to desegregate propelled the decision to merge the Raleigh City Schools and Wake County Schools. According to WCPSS, proposals to divide the district, would weaken and resegregate the schools.

A variety of questions certainly emerge from such thinking.

First, WCPSS seems to have no or very little faith in parents. Without the ability to control economic and racial diversity, WCPSS says schools would resegregate. Is there another way of saying our policies to desegregate aren’t working? If not, why continue the policy?

Second, if every business or organization has an optimum size, so too does a school district. When entities get large they become less efficient and more impersonal. WCPSS believes that the larger the system; the better. That’s not the case. Large systems frequently have higher costs for such things as land, labor and services. Finally, larger districts frequently have higher costs because they enroll a larger percentage of higher-needs students, such as at-risk, special needs, limited English proficiency, Title I, or ESSA.

WCPSS says the county integration plan prevents segregation and is the key to providing opportunity and better schools.

“It’s the foundation of our success as a community. It is the reason our community has prospered. It’s why our taxes are low. It’s what attracted many of you to move here. It’s why all of our schools are good schools.”

Excuse me if I think the rhetoric bloated. It’s what you might expect out of a big bureaucracy. All the more reason why parents deserve a bigger say on decision-making at WCPSS.

If the UNC Chapel Hill Board of Trustees were looking for a way to make absolutely no one happy, they found it with their proposed “solution” to the relocation of Silent Sam.

Silent Sam is a statue honoring the UNC students who fought in the Civil War. It was erected in 1913 by the Daughters of the Confederacy. In August of this year, a mob of mostly non-student protestors pulled down the statue in an act of blatant disregard for the law. The September Civitas Poll found that 70 percent of respondents opposed the crowd toppling the monument, while only 22 percent supported it.

State law requires that confederate monuments not be moved without state approval. Thus, the UNC Board of Trustees was tasked with proposing a plan for replacing the statue.

This week, UNC Chancellor Carol Folt announced the Board’s recommendation. They suggest building a new “museum” in a more discrete part of campus to house the statue amidst other artifacts and educational pieces (view the full report here). The estimated cost of the proposed high-security building is $5.3 million plus an additional $800,000 per year for operation. The campus is planning to ask the legislature for the money. This means that they expect state taxpayers to foot the bill for this excessive endeavor.

UNC students and faculty have expressed that the previous placement of Silent Sam at the front of the school denoted a place of honor unbefitting the statue considering some of the sentiment expressed at its dedication. Why can the statue not just be relocated to less conspicuous place on campus? Folt reported that public safety was the top criterion in the board’s decision to not place the statue in an outside location.

Putting aside our feelings about confederate statues, let’s think critically about the implications of the chancellor’s statement. Is the statue itself a threat to public safety? It has been in place for over a century; has Sam himself ever harmed anyone? Of course not. The public safety threat that the chancellor is alluding to is the MOB that tore down the statue this summer. Such thinking conveys an assumption that lawlessness is the default; that students or community members simply are not able to control themselves, that they are not responsible for their deliberate choices which endanger public safety. If the statue can be blamed for the mob’s violence, the perpetrators will never be held accountable for their own actions.

Will the chancellor not hold her campus to a higher standard?

Will all of our future decisions be decided with the threat of a mob as the top consideration, regardless of cost to taxpayers statewide now and into the future? That is no way to govern.

Interestingly, campus police were present for the riot that resulting in the statue’s toppling. Their lack of preventative action is revealing. Were they instructed to turn a blind eye? If not, why did the administration fail to condemn the campus police for allowing the vandalism under their watch? There are many unanswered questions, but they all seem to point to a pattern from the UNC administration of disregarding the law when it is convenient for them.

UNC students have the right to protest and to petition their Board to let them move the statue to another on-campus location or the legislature for approval to move the statue off-campus. But the students, faculty, or surrounding community of Chapel Hill do not have the right to impose a burden on all North Carolina taxpayers which results from their refusal to follow the law.

North Carolinian’s are divided on their overall opinion of Confederate statues. Thirty-nine percent say that they’d support legal removal of the monuments, while 50 percent oppose. There are valid points on either side. The statue should not be a force of racial intimidation on campus; nor should its removal be a condemnation of the entirety of our state’s history. It is a delicate balance, but one that, if reached, could help to heal some of the wounds that this situation has reopened.

At the least, it seems fitting to add some context. The campus could make a statement about its commitment to human dignity, deeply rooted because of the state’s history. That seems an appropriate counterbalance to the statue’s previous intent. But a relocation of the statue to another outdoor location and a new plaque would likely cost much less than $5 million. And if the students and faculty want that, they should be willing to finance it. The school was certainly able to find nearly four times the proposed building amount outside of the state coffers to finance their academic-athletic scandals.

The UNC recommendation will now go to the Board of Governors, the governing body for the larger University of North Carolina Campus System, for final approval.

In what can only be described as a jarring, jolting turn of events, the election results of North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District appear to be in limbo. CNN reports that, “In a surprise move Tuesday, the North Carolina State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement cited their own authority to initiate an investigation into the race, which Democrat Dan McCready conceded to Republican Mark Harris the day after the election.”

Although the number of Bladen County absentee ballots in question is less than Harris is purported to have won the race by, it could lead to another election, despite McCready’s concession the day after the election, as well as his decision to forego his right to a recount. The absentee-by-mail total cast in Bladen County is 840, according to the Civitas Institute Vote Tracker.

According to a letter addressed to the NCSBE on behalf of the North Carolina Democratic Party, “Bladen County had the highest percentage of absentee ballot requests in the entire state of North Carolina: 7.5% of all registered voters.” The letter continues, “…we have been told that an individual who has been the focus of the state’s investigation worked for Mr. Harris’ top consulting firm, during the primary and general elections.” It closes with a request for the Board of Elections and Ethics to conduct a public evidentiary hearing.

The North Carolina GOP has also made a statement on the unexpected turn of events, taking a much more hawkish approach. Robin Hayes, the North Carolina Republican Party Chairman stated, “The Charlotte Obsever editorial board is right: ‘An election certification is being held up. The person behind the delay is being a bit coy about it. The public is in the dark. That needs to change – and soon.'” Hayes closes his statement with a call for NCSBE Chairman Andy Penry’s resignation.

Now What?

Civitas has long been a champion of fair, accessible, and secure elections for North Carolina citizens. If election fraud has occurred, it needs to be identified, verified, and prosecuted. The sooner the better. If the state Board of Elections believes there has been wrongdoing, then an open investigation should be launched, replete with maximum transparency. The blatant partisanship that has been part and parcel of the process until this point is not only disappointing; it is unacceptable.

North Carolinians have made it clear that secure and fair elections are important to them. The voters of the 9th Congressional District, as well as Mark Harris and Dan McCready, deserve the truth. The Board of Elections and Ethics, as well as the Democratic and Republican parties, should set aside partisanship and work together to ensure that’s exactly what happens.

I’ve written frequently about what a horrific money pit light rail projects are, as they can be fourteen times as expensive per mile than four lane highways. But the incredibly wasteful nature of light rail projects takes a back seat to the immoral act of forcing taxpayers across the state (and indeed the nation) to finance a shiny train that will service a very tiny fraction of a local population.

Moreover, the ongoing struggle to green light the Durham-Orange light rail boondoggle has underscored yet another reason to oppose light rail: the inevitable corruption and cronyism involved when billions of dollars will be awarded by politicians to connected developers and contractors.

The Durham-Orange Light Rail Transit project is using a consultant who earlier this year pleaded guilty to fraud related to thousands of dollars in personal travel, meals and alcohol while he was a transportation official in Arizona.

Consultant Stephen Banta took a plea bargain in September, pleading guilty to one felony count of fraudulent schemes and practices, The Arizona Republic reported. This month, Banta was punished with two years of unsupervised probation and a $6,000 fine.

John Tallmadge, the interim light-rail project manager for GoTriangle, said the agency knew about Banta’s charges when he was hired as a subcontractor…. (emphasis added)

Banta has been working on an as-needed basis since Jan. 10, 2017, at a rate of $231.75 an hour, she said. His contract is worth up to $443,457

So a corrupt bureaucrat already convicted of stealing taxpayer dollars is now being rewarded nearly half a million of your dollars to work as a “consultant” on a light rail project that has yet to even be authorized. And those in charge of the light rail boondoggle are ok with it.

Just imagine the corruption, waste and fraud that will take place if the government awards these folks $2.5 billion.